…when you offer them some compost tea and they think you’re offering them a cool beverage to drink.

Or…when you hand them a tomato sucker and tell them, “Take a broom stick and make a hole about a foot deep and stick this (the tomato sucker) in it. Water it and firm the dirt around it. You should get a new plant,” and somehow they take away from that that you’re telling them to plant a broom stick.

And you learn to get free plants EG style. After watching his video on rooting and pruning tomato suckers, about a week ago I stuck four tomato suckers that I pruned from my cherry tomatoes into the ground and ended up with three growing tomato plants. Here’s a photo of the largest one looking sung and cozy.

So, is it just me or has anybody else had somebody say something like that to them?

Daphne over at Daphne’s Dandelions is hosting Harvest Monday. She invites you to link up at her blog and show off your harvest (big or small). I’m glad she threw in the small because that’s what I’m getting these days…small amounts of veggies that I gave up on weighing. I’ll go back and count how many items I picked. 33 cherry tomatoes sure sounds like a lot more than 10.8 ounces of cherry tomatoes.

I had to taste test the corn and it’s nice and sweet. This is from my micro-mini “corn field”……a whopping 6 square feet. I assisted Mother Nature with the pollination of the corn, and maybe it paid off.

Corn Pollination 101: The tassel provides the pollen representing the male part of the plant. The silks need to be fertilized with the pollen. Each silk represents a kernel of corn. The pollen spores float through the air (that’s why block planting is preferable to row planting) from the tassels onto the silks which complete the fertilization process. For us humans to assist in pollination, we can shake the plant tassels when the silks start emerging so that the pollen can get onto the silks or we can remove a portion of the tassel and rub in onto the silks (which is what I did specifically for the one ear I’ve picked so far.)

The only problem with the corn is that only one ear has shown up per stalk and the stalks in the back are too skinny. If I do corn next year, I’ll buy seeds (non-genetically modified, non-hybird) and I’ll plant closer to the front of the box so that all the plants get sunshine.

And it’s hard to tell, but on the last face produce picture, the nose is not a cherry tomato. It’s from the Aztec tomato plant I got from my Master Gardener friend, Gregory, from his trip to Growing Power. The plant label said the plants were started in JANUARY. That means this plant is eight months old and just now giving up its first ripe tomato. It’s an heirloom tomato and I’ve decided to let one of them bush as opposed to growing it to a single stem. So far, it’s set more tomatoes than the one beefsteak that I planted, but the tomatoes themselves are smaller. Once it’s fully ripened and I taste it, hopefully I’ll see what all the fuss is about heirloom varieties.

Today is Garden Blogger’s Death Day with Kate and Crew over at Gardening Without Skills. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I don’t have any deaths to post about. Thought I was going to for a minute.

I like to train my tomatoes to a single stem, but I figured this year I’d try letting one grow the way it wanted to grow. After it sent out three branches, I couldn’t handle it any more, and I started pinching out all the suckers again. Well, right in front of the tomato was the four borage plants (four in one square foot). They were shading the tomato, and since I like to eat tomatoes more than I care for the taste of the borage leaves, I decided to pull the borage plants up. When I got to the biggest one, I bent down and started pulling. I was thinking as I was pulling it that, gee, this one has deeper roots than the other three. Maybe that’s why it’s bigger than they are. As soon as I pulled it out of the ground, I realized that it was the tomato plant…the tomato plant loaded with little tomatoes. I stuck it back in the ground and watered it …and watered it…and watered it.

Oh, wait a minute. I just thought of something. Let me go out and take a picture.

That “watered…and watered…and watered” reminded me that I forgot to water this:

These are some lettuce plants I transplanced and stuck in the shade in anticipation of the weather warming up. I noticed the plants were starting to bolt, and then I kinda forgot about them. They died due to my negligence. Call the Plant Police. I’m guilty of neglect. Throw me in jail and throw away the key.

Maybe I can get time served since I’m taking good care of the tomatoes’ siblings and their cousins, the cucumbers.

The biggest gardening activity now is trotting plants in and out getting them ready to be planted in the ground (which I get a three-day rain break). Too bad it would be committing plant murder if you just took them from inside on the shelf to outside in the ground. This hardening off process is a little tedious.

Anyhoo…here’s a little update on my babies.

Here are the habaneros (picture taken on 4-14). They’ve been potted in larger cups since this picture.

Here are the globe basil (planted 3-18, picture taken on 4-4).

Here they are on 4-17 growing in egg shells and a few Dixie cups.

And here’s a comparison of the regular basil planted a couple/few weeks before the globe basil.

Here’s a picture of the peas growing in the “hoop house.”

Here’s the ginger. It started sprouting in December, but I didn’t plant it until about a month ago.

Here are the peppers from Annie’s Granny, the transplanted California wonder peppers, a couple globe basil, and one borage being grown in a soil block of sorts. It was the last seed to germinate, and I scrunched the dirt around it and stuck it in with the other plants.

Here are the basil and the petunias. I had good intentions for an Easter post, but what can I say? The petunias have growth rates all over the place…big, medium and small.

Here’s the petunias (again), the California wonders (again) and the cat grass/wheat grass. It came up really quick, but I should have planted the seeds thicker.

Here are some lettuce and broccoli I just transplanted. I ended up planting them in the ground yesterday.

Here are the egg plants started in soil blocks on 4-1 (picture taken 4-10)

And here they are today.

And the tomatoes. I’m only growing three kinds: Generic cherry, generic cherry, generic beefsteak. I started them in flats as opposed to individual pots, so I’ve been transplanting and pottting up and I haven’t been diligent about labeling them. I think I can distinguish the beefsteak from the cherry, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to distinguish between the two cherries. One is prettier and one has bigger tomatoes. Oh, well. Next year I’ll do better, but here’s one of the biggest and a couple of the smaller ones.

And here they are on the growing rack.

Lastly, the cucumbers: Lemon, bushmaster and pickling.

That’s it for today.

Happy Gardening!!!!

p.s. All you folks with your plants already in the ground, don’t laugh at my little ones. They’ll catch up when we get some warm weather around here.